"Oh," she said, "you must change
everything, it's so very wet." As, to save time, I kept demurring to
taking off various articles of apparel, I always received the same reply,
and finally abandoned myself to a complete change of attire.
I looked in
the mirror, and beheld as complete a tatterdemallion as one could see
begging upon an Irish highway, though there was nothing about the dress
which the most lively imagination could have tortured into the
picturesque. The externals of this strange equipment consisted of an oiled
calico hood, a garment like a carter's frock, a pair of blue worsted
stockings, and a pair of India-rubber shoes much too large for me. My
appearance was so comic as to excite the laughter of my grave friends, and
I had to reflect that numbers of persons had gone out in the same attire
before I could make up my mind to run the gauntlet of the loiterers round
the door. Here a negro guide of most repulsive appearance awaited me, and
I waded through a perfect sea of mud to the shaft by which people go under
Table Rock. My friends were evidently ashamed of my appearance, but they
met me here to wish me a safe return, and, following the guide, I dived
down a spiral staircase, very dark and very much out of repair.
Leaving this staircase, I followed the guide along a narrow path covered
with fragments of shale, with Table Rock above and the deep abyss below.
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